The poor child hardly suspected herself what this longing for affection signified. She did not yet know her own heart altogether; she did not confess to herself that it was the strange, budding love of a maiden for a man that brought on this need for the sympathy of one of her own s.e.x.

"Weak, weak!" replied Catherine, pensively; "no I do not think that you are weak--the reverse in this case. These old moral instincts, or whatever we like to call them--this intense like to adopting means condemned by antique ethics, for the working of righteous ends, are difficult to contend with. You have strong instincts which are in opposition to your sense of duty. Had you been weaker-minded in this conflict, you would have abandoned duty and followed instinct. In you, both the sense of duty and the instinct are very strong. It is because of this--because your nature is strong and not weak--that the conflict for you is a terrible one--that you are a martyr--as such a martyr as Ridley or Latimer, who gave up all that natural instinct makes dear--even life, and things dearer than life, for duty's sake."

Mary felt that what the Chief said was very true. The instinctive horror at the nature of her duties preyed on her mind; but she was ashamed as she considered that she was quite undeserving of these words of praise, knowing as she did that there was now another element that complicated the conflict, the nature of which her kind protectress little guessed.

It has been shown how Mary's Brixton education had made of her a liar; but somehow although her latter training in Maida-Vale, with its Jesuitical teachings as to all means being good if for the advancement of the "Cause," was hardly calculated to cure her of this vice, she could never lie to her benefactress; and now that she had known Dr.

Duncan, she had begun to feel a repugnance to deceiving anyone at all.

Such is the power of love. The woman looks up to the lord of her heart, and if he be good, she will seek to be good too; she wonders that he can look on her as an angel, and she endeavours to come as near as possible to his ideal.

So it was that Mary felt a great desire to reveal the fact of her dangerous friendship with Dr. Duncan to her protectress. She could not deceive her any longer, and determined to unburden her mind at once. So she commenced by timidly asking, "Mother, have you ever ... loved? Have you ever loved ... anyone beside me?" Then she paused, in confusion, not knowing how to proceed, a deep blush suffusing her cheeks.

Catherine King stared at her, but evidently did not understand her meaning. No one possessed keener powers of observation than the Chief of the Sisterhood; but when pondering over subjects connected with the Cause she would often become absent-minded, and notice nothing. She had now drifted into this condition, so replied to Mary in a rhapsodical tone: "Oh, love, love! what a deep-rooted instinct of life thou art! But we ill-fated, born into a miserable age, must trample on our instincts for Humanity's sake. Until the old order is altogether changed for the new, such as you and I, Mary, can have nothing to do with love."

The girl's courage melted--she dared not tell her tale just then, whilst Catherine King was in that mood, so she replied, submissively: "So be it ... so long as I have your love, mother ... for oh, I am weak, miserably weak, and love I must have; or I will fail!"

Catherine spoke again: "Love is, indeed, a n.o.ble instinct, Mary, but of all loves love of Humanity is the most n.o.ble, the most unselfish. We must sacrifice all lesser loves for that one. Future ages will look back to us as the martyrs of Humanity, my child," and as she uttered these words the woman's eyes blazed with enthusiasm, and a.s.sumed that far-away look that was usual to them.

The conversation here dropped. "Martyrs! Martyrs, indeed!" thought the poor girl, and she fell again into her miserable brooding, and her soul grew darker and darker, as the early night settled down on the city, and the gas-lights came out one by one in the dismal, rainy street.

But on the other hand, to the woman absorbed in her dream of Humanity, the dingy little room faded away; and to her exalted mind vision after vision, each more glorious than the last, arose--of future peoples, perfect, happy, good; and her brain whirled with the magnificence of her fancies, and her soul wandered in a paradise of beautiful imaginations; so that there came to her expressive features a n.o.bility, such as the face of some saint of old drunk with G.o.d, on the point of martyrdom, might have worn.

Catherine King was perplexed--she could perceive that the girl's illness was mental rather than physical. She considered that it was the horror of the nature of her duties working on a young mind; but she could hardly account for the recent rather sudden aggravation of these symptoms in her pupil.

Loving the girl as she did, she was much troubled. Remorse for the agony to which she was dooming this young life tormented her; but her thorough belief in the righteousness of her scheme made her stifle these natural feelings.--"Yes, it must be--the child must be sacrificed."

CHAPTER XIII.

A SCIENTIFIC MURDER.

On those occasions when Susan Riley obtained the usual forty-eight hours' leave of absence from the hospital, it was her custom to pa.s.s most of this time in the company of her lover the barrister.

Now, it happened on the night that Dr. Duncan had come across his old friend at the Albion, the latter had made an appointment with his mistress to take her to the theatre after a dinner at a restaurant.

He had given her the set of keys to his chambers, so that she might let herself in at six o'clock, and there await his coming.

Susan arrived at the appointed hour. Hudson was generally punctual when he had to meet her; but seven o'clock pa.s.sed, then eight, and yet he did not come, so that Susan, who had first felt only extremely angry at his delay, began to be fearful of some disaster.

This is what had occurred. At three o'clock in the afternoon, for the first time for three long years, the man had caught a glimpse of Mary Grimm as she was walking down Oxford Street.

He recognised her at once. The sight brought back to him a host of memories and regrets. His mind, weakened and excitable from habitual alcoholism, was altogether unbalanced by this meeting.

A senseless pa.s.sion--such as are the curse of such enfeebled brains, in which all the emotions are exalted to the verge of madness--possessed him. It was not that he had, through all these years, nursed any love for the young girl whom he had only seen for a few hours altogether. He had almost forgotten her. He had long since given up thinking about her.

But now, no sooner did he perceive her, than he felt as if she had been all the world to him ever since that strange adventure in the Temple. He really believed that this had been the case; and the mad delusion took command of him and carried him away with it. He loved her--her only, he thought--the dear little girl who had pa.s.sed that evening with him in his rooms--Oh! so long ago, it appeared now to him, not in years though, but in change of nature. Yes, he was sunk now beyond redemption, he was utterly lost--a degraded wretch--so he dared not go up to her and speak to her; he was too foul a thing to approach _her_--and he almost burst into hysterical tears, as he turned his back to her while she pa.s.sed him, that she might not see his face; and then he walked away in an opposite direction--whither he cared not--in that condition when all good has abandoned the soul of a man, and it is empty, and will only open to devils.

He no longer thought of his mistress, his beloved Edith, or of his engagement with her. He went into refreshment bar after refreshment bar, asking at each for brandies, which he swallowed neat and at a gulp one after the other; so that men looked askance at him, and the bar-maids who served him pitied him, and begged him to drink no more.

He did not become drunk, he was beyond that stage; but a fierce despairing sullenness seized him and was expressed in his features, which were now as pale as death, with two large eyes blazing out from darkened circles.

And so on and on, hour after hour, until the time when we left him outside the Albion, running away from the one human being who wished to befriend him.

All this while Susan Riley, in no contented mood, was waiting for him in his chambers, which appeared cheerless enough, for no fire was burning in the grate, and she could find but one candle to place on the table, whose light only threw out in stronger gloom the dark wainscotting and sombre-coloured furniture.

As the tedious hours went by, she paced up and down the rooms, and sat down in turns. She took down book after book from his shelves but could find nothing to interest her. Then she opened his drawers and desks, and looked over some of Hudson's private papers. This was a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of hers when she was left alone in his chambers; and she had contrived, by reading his letters whenever she had an opportunity, to learn a good deal about his family, and pecuniary prospects.

She was examining the contents of a desk, turning over some ma.n.u.script, poems, and articles in a cursory fashion, when her eye happened to fall on the t.i.tle of one of these, "La Fille de Marbre."

"Dear me!" she said to herself, "here is a poem addressed to me. He told me the other day, when he was in bad a humour, that I reminded him of the heroine of a French novel he had been reading--'La Fille de Marbre.'

I begin to think he almost sees through me sometimes now, and does not consider me quite such a perfect being as he did. I will read this 'Fille de Marbre,' and see what nonsense he has been writing about me. I may learn something about the true state of his sentiments."

There was an amused smile on her face as she read the barrister's latest poetical production:--

"LA FILLE DE MARBRE."

I.

THEN.

"Children of pleasure are we: the whole of our life is a play; With white b.r.e.a.s.t.s, music, and wine we while the hours away.

You scorn and revile us and hate us, would put us to torture and shame, You virtuous! Ah, well! We will not pause in the game, To be bitter in our turn on you and wax hot. Not we! for we know Life is too short for such folly. Away all pother and woe!

Think not of the After! Drink deep of the Present! This world's good enough; Has infinite sweets: fool he that follows the way that is rough!

"The maudlin sage drones out, 'All pleasure is vain.' Let him try!

He will weep and rend his clothes with regret that he did deny These rapturous joys to himself through so many pitiful years.

What do we know of the After? Why brood upon it with fears?

The Now is enough for the wise. Come, ye daughters of joy!

Help me to live as one should. Let thy white feet glance in my hall: Of all the gifts of the good G.o.ds, ye are the sweetest of all!

"Hark to the sour recluse! He says, 'Woman's a perilous toy,'

That 'the girl is selfish and false, and follows the luck of the dice, Smells gold afar off as a vulture, with caresses feigned for the rich, And when the gold is all gone will let her love die in a ditch.'

"A liar! a coward he! that fears what he does not know.

'Tis the cold, not the fierce Bacchante's blood, the red gold mastereth so.

"For we too have died for each other--we 'selfish' children of vice, Our pa.s.sionate kisses are warm, yea warmer than virtue can tell.

Ho! ho! while I live, I will live, nor give thought to G.o.d or his h.e.l.l!"

II.

NOW.

"Cold is the wind and the rain of the autumn night in the street.